1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing method and system, and more particularly to a sound processing method and system for a portable computer having a speaker system.
The present invention relates to an information processing method and system, and more particularly to an information processing method and system in which two or more sound output series are controlled.
2. Related Background Art
With recent technology advancement, computers are rapidly growing. Main streams are computers having versatile multimedia functions such as audio and video. Such a trend is also accompanied by portable computers generally called note type personal computers. Apparatuses such as note type personal computers which give prominence to portability require high performance and high density. It is therefore difficult to mount a large diameter speaker having an advantage in reproducing low frequency sounds, or to reserve a speaker back space allowing the speaker performance to exhibit sufficiently. Even if such a space can be reserved at the design stage, the space has been used preferentially for other devices of state of the art or removed for compactness. The performance of a speaker built in a note type personal computer has been therefore traded off, and in order to reproduce sounds of good quality, the built-in speaker is switched to a separate speaker box or to a separate speaker mounted on a docking station having a relatively large space and used for extending the functions of a note type personal computer.
Such a docking station is provided with various input/output devices, and some docking stations are provided even with an amplifier, a CD-ROM drive, and a speaker. The docking station of this type has a sound volume knob and can be used by itself for reproducing CD music, without docking to a note type personal computer.
Most of note type personal computers are provided with a sound volume knob. A user can adjusts the sound volume of a speaker (or head-mount speaker) by operating upon this volume knob.
The above-described prior art is, however, associated with the following problems.
1) If a personal computer is connected to one of speaker boxes or one of docking stations, acoustic sense such as frequency characteristics and sound output levels becomes different for each speaker box or docking station because of the different characteristics thereof.
2) If a speaker box or a docking station is connected to one of personal computers, acoustic sense such as frequency characteristics and sound output levels becomes different for each personal computer because of the different characteristics thereof.
3) Since a docking station and a note type personal computer each have a volume knob, if they are docked together, it is necessary to operate upon both the knobs, complicating the user operation, or if one of the knobs is invalidated, it is difficult to a non-skilled user to discriminate between the invalid and valid knobs.
4) In hot docking a note type personal computer while it is operating, the volume of sounds output from the speaker of the docking station may become too large or small according to the setting position of the knob at that time.